Egypt urges UN to speed up demining efforts

Egypt's permanent delegate to the United Nations (UN) Ahmad Abul-Gheit made fresh intensive contacts with the new UN Assistant Secretary-General Michael Sheen, a former US ambassador and the official in charge of the peace-keeping operations and chief of the Secretariat's demining departments.

Abul-Gheit said that he urged Sheen to enforce the items mentioned in the UN report on landmines in Egypt, issued in July 2000 after a visit by a UN delegation to the Western Desert in Egypt, where warring powers during the second World War II left millions of landmines and explosives.

He noted that he urged the Secretariat to raise this issue during the next meeting of donor countries interested in removing landmines worldwide, adding the meeting will be held at the UN headquarters in Geneva during the first week of February.